The Tourist

“The Tourist” stars Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp and Paul Bettany in what was obviously intended as a clever spy thriller in the would be (but doesn’t achieve) style of Alfred Hitchcock and other great directors of that ilk.. The film has 6 screenplay and writer credits and one wonders how, with all these supposedly talented people, the dialogue and story still leaves so much to be desired. The clue to the shallowness of the script and the illogical circumstances it creates is that, in the final 15 seconds of the film, the all too typical “dialogue to explain everything” takes place. Somewhere within this film is a good movie but 6 writers and director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (one of the writers) just couldn’t quite find it. Angelina Jolie, strutting around like a model on a fashion show runway, has almost no dialogue in the picture. In fact, if she said the director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck‘s name, it would take up more screen time than all the words she uttered in the film. That all being said, the picture still gets a 2 and ½ star rating because the real attraction of the film (which should get the most prominent screen credit of all) is the City of Venice. Even if you’ve been there before, it still ignites the traveling bug to go back and see it again for never has a city been photographed and shown in such beauty, pulse beat and color. So, in fairness to the film, although it contains too many contradictions and inconsistencies, it nevertheless gives the viewer a fast paced and wonderful tour of the unique location where it was filmed.